Monday, November 18, 2013

Apigee is Moving to Downtown San Jose!

Apigee is technology start-up that has become a major player in enterprise API (Application Programming Interface) management. APIs let companies open up their software so that other applications can communicate with them. Whenever you see a function on a website that lets you post to Facebook, Google+, Linkedin, or Twitter... that is all done using APIs.

Now to cut to the chase, Apigee is a hot Palo Alto company with IPO potential and they have decided to move to Downtown San Jose. They are upgrading from 16,000 SQFT at 260 Sheridan to 41,000 SQFT of office space that could house over 250 employees at 10 Almaden. This is the largest office lease for Downtown so far in 2013.

What is surprising is that 20% of Apigee workers live in San Francisco and take Caltrain to work. They found that most San Franciscans actually preferred the Downtown San Jose location since they can take a baby bullet train which does not service the California Avenue Caltrain stop. Hopefully, if Downtown continues on the current trajectory, we might be able to convert some of these San Franciscans to San Joseans.

Some other perks of moving to Downtown San Jose from Palo Alto is that the cost of the office space is far less expensive and there is plenty of room to grow. You also have access easy access to the SAP Center, the remodeled Convention Center, an international airport, Lightrail, and BART in the future. If we can get two or three more of these hot companies Downtown, I think it would have a strong positive impact on the brand of Downtown and put the area on the radar for a lot more hot growing companies in Silicon Valley. Already, the restaurant and residential markets are exploding and retail is improving at a steady pace, so it is just a matter of time before the office market catches up.

The electrified Caltrain corridor is a much better solution and utilizes existing railway. BART has a unique track width and configuration which makes it relatively obsolescent these days. The cost to electrify Caltrain is a fraction of building new BART lines... it cost $9B for the short addition from Fremont to San Jose. With the problems that the JPB had with HSR down the peninsula, BART would never have a chance. Improving Caltrain will immensely improve the peninsula's commute.

There is a Startup Accelerator in San Jose, that I think was only started about a year ago. http://www.manosaccelerator.com/ It is focused on Latino owned startups, I would love to see what the startups that move here for the program have to say about downtown San Jose. (They also have some nice photos of downtown)